


Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?

by BloodiedRose



Series: Amnesiacs [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23112184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodiedRose/pseuds/BloodiedRose
Summary: Donna has never been the most technologically savvy woman on the planet, even after getting a Time Lord's brain. Fortunately, traveling with Jamie and Zoe makes her feel a whole lot better about her technological failings. Unfortunately, she is also traveling with Jamie and Zoe, who probably shouldn't be allowed around technology. Ever.Team Amnesia vs technology of various forms
Relationships: Donna Noble & Jamie McCrimmon, Donna Noble & Jamie Mccrimmon & Zoe Heriot, Donna Noble & Zoe Heriot, Zoe Heriot & Jamie McCrimmon
Series: Amnesiacs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661272
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29





	Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I wrote another one. And this is... happy? I think this is genuinely happy? Clearly I've been replaced by a pod person.

It starts with a missing laptop. Not an important one, mind, just something Donna has rigged up to record new episodes of _Would I Lie To You_ and _Call The Midwife_ while she’s traveling. The contraption is still working perfectly, it’s just that the laptop through which Donna can store and watch her guilty pleasures is conspicuously missing. All the wires have been taken out, so it had to have been someone who knew what they were doing, but said wires are strewn about instead of carefully placed. It’s a situation Donna recognises. A ‘screw this thing in particular’ situation.

\---

Donna is always blown away by Jamie’s acceptance of technology. Even when she rifles through the Doctor’s memories can she only find a few more instances of Jamie being stunned by technology, and even when he is it is something that is quickly overtaken by wonder and excitement. Sure, he thinks that lights are matches inside glass that are lit every time you flick a switch, and that the TARDIS was so temperamental because the Doctor doesn’t feed, groom, or hug her enough the way you should with any of your favourite horses. His understanding of technology may not be complete, but it is logical in the realm of his origins, and he accepts things as they come anyway. 

Of course, that hasn’t kept Jamie from developing a few eccentricities. His fascination with technology doesn’t prohibit a wariness towards it as well, meaning that Donna has walked in on him some mornings perched on the counter, legs swinging as he looks down on the toaster “just in case the fire needs more logs”. Which inevitably leads to him almost falling off the counter when his toast pops out of the toaster when he least suspects it. And on more than a few occasions Jamie has chosen to watch a film from behind the screen, trying to figure out where the pictures are coming from.

Each time Donna sees Jamie staring intently at a piece of technology far beyond the dreams of his time, watching it not necessarily to figure out how it works but to see what it can do, she feels a swell of pride deep in her chest. She is never entirely sure if it is hers of the Doctor’s (though sometimes the pride is accompanied by an urge to walk over and press a kiss to his lips, which she quickly stamps out because _she_ likes her men to be able to both rent and drive a vehicle unlike certain cradle robbing aliens).

(The Doctor hates it when she calls him a cradle robber. Sometimes she calls him a dirty old man instead. It makes a few of the Doctors refuse to talk to her for weeks on end, but it also makes other Doctors laugh. A few don’t get it, but those ones don’t get ‘cradle robber’ either, and so are largely unbothered.)

There are times when Jamie’s different understanding of technology backfires, of course. Accustomed to robots and the like, he once tried to have a conversation with the microwave and couldn’t figure out why ENJOY YOUR MEAL. HAVE A NICE DAY was all it said. It reached the point where Jamie became worried that the microwave was in danger and was speaking in code. (Zoe, of course, recorded all of it). And then there was the first time a battery died while Jamie was using a device, when the poor boy knocked on Donna’s door in the middle of the night, cradling a music player in his arms and unable to stop crying because he thought he had killed it.

It was at that point Donna decided to teach Jamie at least some of the basics.

\---

“What’s that?”

“Some type of phone.”

Donna walks down the aisle with her trolley, because of course trolleys are multi-galactic. Jamie is all but bouncing beside her, his kilt waving with the motion. He points again.

“And that?” Jamie asks.

“A crock pot. It cooks food slowly over time. Think of it like a cauldron, I guess. But with less stirring.” Donna reaches over to grab a food processor and blender. Her TARDIS is significantly less stocked than the Doctor’s, unsurprising seeing as he spent a thousand years accumulating junk while she has just moved in. 

“And what is that?” Jamie asks. He is pointing at something that looks like a bowl, except slightly narrower, almost like a large egg. 

“I have no idea,” Donna replies. “Let’s get it.”

Jamie smiles and grabs for the display, before Donna gestures at him to get one still in the box instead. He gently picks it up and places it in the trolley, filled with carefully stacked boxes. They begin walking again.

“What’s that?”

Maybe it was a mistake to bring Jamie to an alien appliance store.

\---

It turns out to be a food to alcohol converter. Donna doesn’t judge.

She goes back and buys five more.

\---

A tablet goes missing next. It takes a while for Donna to even realise that it is missing-- she was sure she had put it down on the pink Shemilan couch, but when she went back the next day it was gone. But Donna was always forgetting where she had put things, at least post metacrisis. Prior to that, she had been great at remembering where everything was. It was how she knew where everything was in her various offices. Of course, the Doctor had the organisational skills of an adipose on speed, and had transferred some of that to her as well. 

But disorganised as Time Lord brain has made her, Donna knows that she has not been anywhere else for the tablet to have been put, so the only reasonable possibility is that it has been taken. The question is why. Jamie and Zoe both have everything they desire, and so flamboyantly designed that their property could never be mistaken for anyone else’s, so there is no reason for one of them to take hers. 

Unless there is.

But then they land on a new planet, and end up so busy being chased by robot monkeys that she forgets to ask.

\---

Zoe’s reaction to the technology Donna uses in her TARDIS comes from a different place to Jamie’s, but is remarkably the same. Except her incomprehension of the devices are not due to being from a time when such things were completely impossible, but from a time so far forward that even the most extensive upgrade would still be considered obsolete.

“What even in this?” Zoe asks, twirling a DVD on her finger. The lights make a rainbow on the wall, and gives Donna a new idea for wallpaper.

“It’s called a DVD,” Donna replies. She is still using her old DVD player, which is most familiar to her but also happens to be several editions out of date and a bit temperamental at the best of times. The disc tray won’t open no matter how many buttons she pushes, so she gives it a thump for good measure. “It’s what we use to record TV programs.”

“Just use a poly format wavelength like everyone else. It’s far more efficient.”

The DVD tray finally slides open. Donna takes the DVD off of Zoe’s finger and places it on the tray, before gently pushing it to slide back in. Picture finally appears on the screen Donna has set up in the TARDIS theatre, and the theme music swells gently through the room. 

“What are we watching, anyway?” Zoe asks. She bounces over to the couch and makes herself comfortable.

“I thought we would introduce Jamie to the ‘Time Traveling Scot’ genre. Give him a bit of a thrill.” Donna sinks into the couch as well, just as Jamie comes in carrying a bowl with enough popcorn that it could only be considered ‘indulgent’. 

“Give who a bit of a thrill?” Jamie asks between bites of popcorn. He pulls away when Zoe leans in to grab some for herself.

“Oh, it was just a weird trend to have burly Scottish men in kilts in time travel stories,” Donna says. She grabs some of the popcorn from Jamie’s blind side. “Thought it might make you feel at home.”

“Oh, aye,” Jamie replies, sitting on Donna’s other side and holding the popcorn as far away from Zoe as he can. Until she turns the big brown eyes on him, at which point he caves immediately and hands her the bowl. 

They begin to play the movie. Zoe occasionally comments on the picture quality, or the laughable special effects, and each time is shushed progressively louder by a star struck Jamie. Donna happily munches on her popcorn and, when required, hums along to Queen.

By the end of the film, Jamie is enamoured. 

“Are there more like this?” He asks. 

“Oh yeah there’s a whole bunch of Highlander films. And a show. And a couple of remakes. It’s a thriving genre.” Donna rubs her eyes, before turning to Zoe. “After that, of course, there’s always Outlander.”

Zoe’s face lights up with mischief.

\---

“That’s between a man and his wife! They cannae be showing that in plays!”

“Jamie, move your hand! I can’t see!”

“You shouldnae see! Yer just a wee lassie!”

“I’m twenty-two! This scene is important! Now move your hand before I show you the internet!”

\---

Jamie runs into the kitchen one day and immediately starts turning everything over.

“Donna, have ye seen my box that makes music?”

Donna sighs and takes Jamie’s hand, dragging him out of the kitchen. He twists in her grip, still trying to look for the IPod that he thinks he has misplaced. After they turn down a third corridor Jamie simply follows her until they reach the workshop. 

Donna pulls the door open, and when she does the air fills with loud banging. The room is poorly lit and none of the tables are in use. They have to walk almost to the back of the room before they find the culprit.

Zoe is sat cross legged on the floor, surrounded by the mangled parts of various products. She is currently attacking her latest victim, an e-reader, with a wrench by beating it repeatedly. The screen is fizzing, and still blurts out garbled gibberish that once was a friendly AI.

Jamie gasps in horror when he sees his music player next on her chopping block, and dives to grab it from her. Zoe looks up when he does, a mix of annoyance and sheepishness dawning on her face. He pulls away from her, cupping the music player in his hands, stroking it gently with his thumbs.

“It’s ok,” he says as if he was talking to a baby. “I won’t let the mean lady hurt ye.”

Donna just looks down at Zoe, her hands on her hips, and an eyebrow raised.

“Siri needed to be taught a lesson,” Zoe offers by way of explanation.

\---

Donna bans Zoe from ever attempting ‘technological behavioural management’ again.

\---

They run down the corridor, sirens blaring all around them. A lazer bolt hits the wall above Zoe’s head, and if she were any taller, she would be dead. They reach the doors at the end of the hallway and bound through, slamming the doors behind them. Jamie and Donna start shoving as many things as they can against the doors.

“Alright, you Hal rip-off.” Donna can feel her heart pounding, and her breathing is laboured. The evil computer looms over them, its scanners too far above to be able to see them in its roots. “No more totalitarian AI for you. Zoe, upgrade away.”

It sounds intimidating when she says it, and she feels that triumphant surge in her core. No wonder the Doctor is always making those rambly speeches. But Zoe is making noises of frustration, and that is never good.

“What’s wrong?” Donna asks. 

“It keeps changing the system!” Zoe exclaims, typing as fast as her little fingers can manage. Donna races over, and sees a bunch of meaningless symbols flashing on the screens in front of them. “What do we do?” Zoe asks, panicked.

Donna asks the Doctors for help. They convene, and come back with nothing. Fat lot of help they are.

“I’m not a techie! I always called in the IT guys when the computers went bums up at work.”

“Can you call them now?” Zoe asks, and Donna is about to throw her a look when she sees that Zoe is genuinely asking.

“Bit hard to do that from here, love,” Donna replies. And then she just starts pressing buttons. “Maybe we can crash it!”

Zoe shrugs and begins to type just as quickly, but this time in an order that seems less random even though it is probably more so. She feeds different commands into the computer, but it seems to be keeping up with them. Donna tries to see if there are any updates waiting to be installed, because that was always a sure fire way to kill her laptops stone dead.

They work faster, and the computer works faster, and they are caught in a race that is getting more and more frantic when the computer suddenly stops. There is a faint whir, and one by one the screens blink out. Then every level of this thing, this tower of technology, begins to go out. The sirens stop. The searchlight stops. And at the very end, right at the top, the evil AI turns off.

Jamie comes crawling out from some far corner of the room, holding up a very large chord. 

“I have ripped out the heart of the mechanical beastie,” he solemnly declares. 

Before they leave, they teach the people who live on this planet the concept of fixing things by turning them off and on again. Apparently when they reboot the computer, they give it a much nicer personality. And significantly fewer powers. 

They have to get a new power chord, though. Jamie still refuses to give back the old one.

\---

They cuddle on the couch, sometimes. Well, they never call it that, but they all get sad, or lonely, or just comfortable, and gather themselves up on the couch and drape all over each other. It’s lovely, but they all try to pretend it doesn’t happen. Especially when they are all wishing that different versions of the same person were there with them.

Zoe is lazily swiping a tablet, playing a bizarro version of 2048 that is somehow multi-dimensional. Jamie is practising his letters, humming along to the song the radio is playing in the background. Donna is not doing much of anything really, watching her ceiling change based on her TARDIS’ predictions about what is happening in the sky outside of the vortex, occasionally playing with someone’s hair, and wondering what is going to happen on the new episode of the radio drama about to play next.

“Donna, what’s a ca-mee-rah?” Jamie asks. 

“It’s a device that takes pictures of things. Sort of capturing a moment in time,” Donna answers.

“Oh, is _that_ how you get those portraits? I thought there was something strange, there. No painter is that good. Can I have one?”

Donna’s brow furrows. “I already gave you one. A mechanical box, with a metal eye and a small stage inside of it?” 

Jamie shakes his head. She starts to feel very confused, because she had talked to the Doctors about the best way to describe it and they had all agreed she had done a very good job. Jamie’s Doctor starts chuckling, which makes her more confused, until-- oh. Jamie realises it at the same time, and they both turn.

Zoe has frozen, her game shining bright colours onto her face. 

“I will buy you another one,” Zoe mutters.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcome!


End file.
